what i've learned this year ...

2009 was filled with learnings for which I am both Graced and Grateful:

• Beginnings and endings are equally difficult. • Each risk ventured results in some amount of freedom. • The “freer” I feel, the more I am able to trust. • The more I am able to trust, the safer I feel. • The safer I feel, the more I am able to risk. • Sometimes you have to act as though you’ve accomplished your goal in order to see the reality of its possibility. • I can be open and faithful to a process, even when it is uncomfortable or I disagree with a component, as long as I am able to use my voice and feel I’ve been listened to. • I don’t know how to ask for what I want or need but I am learning and practicing. • I am very hard on myself, holding myself to a high level of expectation; when I hold others to that same expectation, I am more often than not left disappointed. • When all is said and done, I am ultimately accountable to myself, who is the harshest critic I know. • I need to embrace and accept where I am in the moment, with all of the pain and discomfort that may entail, instead of wishing the past away and the future already here. • Feelings are just feelings, not judgments, and they do not make me right or wrong, good or bad. • Being overly concerned with others’ feelings and reactions can sometimes paralyze me from making decisions that choose life. • Intention alone does not equal effort. Good or healthy intentions cannot be successfully realized without honest will and desire. • Recognition is the first hurdle of the relay toward wholeness. • Behaviors give messages and have a purpose. • I often find it difficult and uncomfortable to accept the giftedness others see in me. • ART and CREATING are self-soothing forms for me to get in touch with what I haven’t words to express: my Inner Self. • My safe place is in the arms of God, regardless of whether or not I am able to recognize that Presence. • Because of God’s Presence, I am never alone in this process we call Life, no matter where it takes me. • It is the time spent concentrating on my goodness that makes my goodness recognizable. • Recognizing the good inside is a means of recognizing God and honoring the Divine within. May 2010 be equally Graced...